Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (266 page)

Chapter Three - When Miracles Do Happen

IF Jesus is not the 'only begotten son of God': if Almighty God had neither sons nor daughters: if Mary cannot belong to the heavenly personnel, and angels or archangels cannot be numbered among the legates of the enlarged Christian family, then all these sacred messengers are excluded as active causers of visions. However, the fact remains that miracles happen and medically inexplicable cures take place at the sites of Christian visions. Does this mean that nevertheless such phenomena are proof of 'heavenly powers' at work and evidence of the 'authenticity' of visions of members of the Christian Hierarchy?

After studying a mass of sophistical theological explanations, one question takes precedence for me. If no genuine apparition has taken place at what is supposedly the scene of a vision - i.e. of the Blessed Virgin, Jesus or the archangels - or if the personified vision is not identical with the figures placed on record by the 'visionaries', how can 'miracles' and 'miraculous' cures happen in the name of those who are supposed to have appeared?

I sought clarification on the spot.

Lourdes, in the French Pyrenees, is the world's best known place of pilgrimage. As many as five million pilgrims travel their annually from the four corners of the world. The town is rather like a vast annual fair at which miracles are offered as attractions. The streets of Lourdes seethe with people even at night, although the night-life offers nothing more than a striptease of tense expectations.

The miracle business is flourishing; it has been booming for 125 years. In the countless shops there are crucifixes of every conceivable kind and the statue of the Madonna is mass-produced in all sizes, for the office and the front garden. Nor are the rosaries the same for all classes: there are expensive models for the rich and cheaper ones for the less well-off. Which are likely to be more effective is beyond me.

The objects on offer are fanciful and endless: pictures of the saints and clogs, purses, bells and plates, sunglasses, watches and lockets, candles of all kinds: thick and thin, long and short, violet and pink, straight and artistically twisted and adorned with gold writing. On every single one of them - made in Lourdes - the Madonna! Her face on the candles will flow away as wax tears; it is more permanent on the clogs and plates.

I know a lot of bars all over the world, including the ones in Acapulco which claim to have every conceivable shape and size of bottle on their shelves. But in my opinion no establishment can compete with Lourdes when it comes to shapes. I have never seen such a collection of differently shaped bottles in my life. Pot-bellied and spherical bottles, rectangular and triangular, pocket-sized, litre and gallon bottles, of all colours and all sizes. In contrast to the bottles with delightful contents at the Miracle Bar in Acapulco, none of the bottles contains anything but 'miracle water from Lourdes.'

The shopkeepers know how deeply they are indebted to the place's reputation, know precisely what ensures and raises their turnover.

They call their shops 'Au Paradis', 'Notre Chere Dame de Noel', 'Au St. Odile', 'Au St. Camille', 'Au St.

Pape Paul X', 'Au la Paix du Monde', 'Au Rosier de Marie' and, unbeatable in its simplicity, 'Au Sante